When I was in high school, one of my favorite teachers explained to me that the world — at least in his eyes — is made up of two kinds of people: Those who make their way through the world with a walking stick and a clear path, and those who use their walking stick to poke cow pies and stir up flies. His point, of course, was that the latter group is made up of folks you want to avoid. In real life, that's probably true, but on television, it's often just the opposite — and last week's General Hospital treated us to a whole bunch of pie-poking, which all added up to the most purely fun batch of episodes we've seen in some time.
If your idea of good soap includes life-threatening illness, strange bedfellows coming together to cover up crimes against a common foe, catastrophically stupid sex, and at least one loathsomely smug villain, you were in for a series of treats last week. Let's look back together.
Your Business Is with Me, You Son of a Bitch
Monday's episode got off to a rip-roaring start, as Molly walked in on Ava and Cody making out in the stables, at which point Cody immediately told both of them that Kristina had been paying him to lure Ava away from Ric. Ava wasted no time in rushing out to confront Kristina, but Molly stayed behind to hear Cody out as he explained he did it for her, because he knew she didn't want Ava dating her dad.
What I liked about this moment was that while Molly certainly found Cody's explanation rather gross, she didn't fly into a rage; instead, she just let out a sigh, told him not to do her any more favors, and left. Without saying the words, it was clear Molly knew her real issue was with Kristina — as well as herself, because she'd allowed herself to be manipulated by someone too stupid to boil water.
What that confrontation was going on, Kristina was in the midst of her own. When Ric showed up at Alexis' place, he told Kristina he had business with her mom, to which she responded, "Your business is with me, you son of a bitch." And just like that, she emptied the whole can of worms, saying she knew he'd been blackmailing Alexis over the car accident that nearly killed him and Elizabeth. It led to a hell of an argument, one I'd have to say Ric handily won — not just because he's an attorney and well-practiced at this kind of thing, but because Kristina's only card to play was the "one trauma after another" card, which she's pulled from her shabby deck so many times that it's been worn down to scraps.
In the middle of this, Ava showed up and called Ric an idiot for not seeing that Kristina was using Cody to come between them — and then, in a delightful burst of sass, criticized Kristina for the lack of gratitude she displayed after Ava didn't sell her out to the cops. When Kristina called her a "hateful, soulless, murderous bitch," Ava tried to hand Ric her purse so she could clean Kristina's clock, but at this point, Ric had seen enough. He called a halt to the whole thing and said the blackmail was officially over: He'd emptied all the Dolos Fund accounts, found Ava's secret slush fund and emptied that too, and used the whole stash to buy $10 million in treasury bonds that would be untouchable for 30 days.
"You betrayed me!" Ava shrieked.
"You betrayed me first," shrugged an apple-munching Ric, and headed for the door.
Blind with rage, Ava grabbed what we'd soon learn is Alexis' favorite paperweight and bonked Ric on the head with it. He and his apple fell to the floor.
This is wildly soapy stuff, but it only got better when Alexis got home, found Kristina and Ava trying to figure out what to do with Ric's unconscious body, and demanded to know what the hell was going on. As an officer of the court, she initially wanted to call an ambulance — but as a half-Cassadine pragmatist, she was also willing to listen when Ava insisted she keep quiet, threatening to take Kristina down with her if necessary. I laughed out loud when Kristina said "Ava's right, Mom," and Alexis coolly turned to Kristina, smiled, and said "Sweetie, you don't get a vote anymore." I laughed out loud again when we next saw Ric ball-gagged and tied to a bed in Alexis' basement.
It wasn't long before Alexis joined him, removing the gag (which Ava hilariously had sitting in her glove compartment) and letting him think she was there to help him before outlining his suddenly sorry lot — she'd decided to throw in with Ava and Kristina, with the three of them planning to keep him in the basement until the bonds mature. Although Ava doesn't currently know it, Alexis also plans to take the $10 million and put it back in Ace's trust. Ric warned Alexis that Ava would double-cross her, but she was unmoved; when he said she couldn't keep him hidden in the basement for a month, she pointed out he'd done pretty much the same thing to Carly 20-odd years ago. Understanding that Alexis was counting on mutually assured destruction assuring everyone's silence when it was all over, he could only sputter helplessly as she put the ball gag back in and sauntered back upstairs.
No complaints here. None. Maura West, Nancy Lee Grahn, and Rick Hearst are terrific together, and their combined might is almost enough to carry Kate Mansi's dead-eyed doldrums for the duration of this story. It'll be worth watching for the dialogue alone — at least unless and until the writers manage to take this beautiful thing they've built and fumble it down a flight of stairs. For now, I'm delighted, and can't wait to see the fresh hell unleashed by a truly unholy union.
Port Charles Pariah
The biggest pie-poker in town these days is undoubtedly Drew, whose reign of terror has officially reached the stage where he can't have a conversation without someone explicitly threatening his life. To be fair, he also can't have a conversation without smugly insulting and/or threatening to do something awful to whoever he's talking to; not long ago, Drew still acted like he was only defending himself or whatever, but now he's crossed over to a place where he's openly, gleefully enjoying all the havoc he's wrought.
Last week, that included a series of savage barbs tossed at Alexis, Molly, Danny, and Rocco, all of whom either tried talking sense into him or had the bad timing to be in the room when his restraining orders against them were being discussed. He called Danny "a thug in the making," which prompted Alexis to pound a table at the Port Charles Grill and vow to get custody of Scout — at which point, he called her a "known drunk" who Scout will grow up to forget. Saying she won't stop until she takes him down and he's forgotten, she stormed off, leaving Molly to remind Drew that Sam would hate him for this, and warn him that one day, Scout will too.
Later, when he found Danny and Rocco in Carly's office, he derisively referred to Danny as "only a half-brother," called Rocco "nothing," and threatened to pursue criminal charges against them. When Carly tried talking sense into him, he waved her off, saying she should be more worried about Michael. This is thanks to the fact that Marco got tired of waiting for Sidwell to use his bribe of Judge Heran as leverage against Sonny; after watching an argument between Drew and Nina at the Grill that ended with Nina saying she'd see him dead if he hurt Willow again, Marco approached Drew and told him that Sonny bribed the judge to secure Michael's custody of Willow and Wiley.
First, Drew went to Michael with this information, trying to strongarm him into immediately taking the kids to Willow and agreeing to a 50-50 custody split. When Michael blew him off, he went to Carly, gloating that what he was about to do to Michael would make what he was doing to Stella look like nothing at all. At this point, Carly threatened to murder him, which was overheard by Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, was probably outside Carly's office so she could tell her about the frankly alarming conversation she'd just had with Willow, who's gone so fully around the bend that she has not only decided that Drew is her only shot at getting her kids back, but she's agreed to get back together with him if he can make it happen. Beaming and glassy-eyed, Willow told Elizabeth that the proof of Drew's power is the way he bribed the receptionist at the burn clinic to say Michael didn't want to see her ("he reached across an ocean"), and even if she doesn't love Drew anymore, it doesn't matter, as long as she can have her kids.
These scenes were just as cuckoo as they look on paper, and Katelyn MacMullen deserves a round of applause for going all in on whatever flavor of madness the writers are asking her to sell during any given week. She's gone from madly in love to enraged to seemingly concussed in less than a month, and none of her performances betray even the slightest hint of hesitation, which might be the biggest key to success for a soap actor. As Jack Wagner told me when we talked in 2009, "On General Hospital, I played a guy who was in a band and joined the police force all of a sudden — the ‘singing cop,’ we called him. And Peter Burns on Melrose Place was the chief of staff of a hospital who never did surgery. All he did was have sex. And now Nick Marone on The Bold & the Beautiful is a sea captain turned fashion mogul-slash-singer. So … you know what I mean? You just go with the flow on TV. ‘Yeah! I’ve got it. That’s what I am! I’m a sea captain!’ I grew out a beard for that role, and I had the alcohol and the cigar — you know, a real man’s man — and then, of course, he’s a fashion mogul now, and I went, ‘That’s absolutely what he is. That is absolutely what he should be.'"
Drew also received a death threat from Curtis, who spent the week storming around Port Charles and griping to anybody who'd listen about Drew "going after my auntie." (I still giggle every time he says it.) He and Drew had it out in Drew's office, and partway through, the suddenly not-quite-as-useless Kai happened to stop outside the door and hear Drew gloat about how good it felt for him to know Curtis had to watch Stella be exposed to the threat of losing her job and going to prison. Curtis said he'd end Drew before he saw that happen, but that wasn't the part of the conversation Kai was focused on; after Drew left his office, Kai placed a call and verified Drew really was the one behind the insurance fraud investigation. After that, he wasted no time in reaching out to Trina, telling her she was right about everything, and offering to do anything he can to help the Ashfords.
At this point, the ripple effects from Drew's actions have ripple effects of their own, and some of them spell big trouble where Curtis and Portia's marriage is concerned. They've been on shaky ground forever, so I suppose it makes a certain twisted sort of sense that watching Jordan help Curtis keep Stella out of prison was all it took for Portia to pitch a jealous fit — one that ended with her telling him that if he walked out of her office, she'd know their relationship was finally over. He took all of two seconds to turn his back and walk out, leaving her to do her "scream and throw stuff" thing again; naturally, Isaiah walked in just as she was flailing around trying to remove her wedding ring. You know what happened next, and you know it involved him helping her take off a lot more than her ring.
Head clear after a solid helping of adultery with a subordinate, Portia was in the perfect place to drop some truth bombs when Trina arrived, demanding to know why things had been so tense at home lately. Although she left out the part about having sex with a direct report mere moments before Trina showed up, Portia told her about pretty much everything else: the tampering with Heather's blood test, Drew's blackmail, et cetera. When Trina left and Isaiah returned, she told him she had no regrets, explaining that her marriage was irreparably broken before they humped.
I've complained about the Curtis/Jordan/Portia/Isaiah quadrangle before, and I'll definitely do it again; the patently thoughtless way that this nonsense has been slapped together is offensive to the viewers as well as the actors, and the way it segregates the show's characters of color is unacceptable. All of those things are still true. They don't erase, however, the narrative satisfaction of seeing characters share long-held secrets, or the lizard-brain satisfaction of watching characters do wildly messy things, no matter how poorly conceived they might be. As I've said before, narrative motion can cover for a multitude of sins, if only temporarily, and I'm closing my week with the Ashfords with near certainty that this will be the last time I'll experience anything approximating enjoyment where their storylines are concerned.
The ripple effects from Drew's actions also reached Judge Heran last week. After Drew threatened Michael, Michael called Sonny, who pointed out that while he hadn't bribed the judge, someone else must have — and they'd need to get to her quick in order to obtain that person's identity. At the same time, Sidwell was blowing up at Marco, saying that thanks to his foolish lapse in judgment, their best-case scenario was getting caught bribing the judge — more likely, and worse, was that Sonny would retaliate with catastrophic violence. We watched as Sonny, Michael, Sidwell, and Marco all resolved to get to Judge Heran, and knew exactly what was about to happen.
Well, that isn't technically true. We actually knew what was going to happen the minute Chase bumped into the judge at Bobbie's, because a show this strapped for cash doesn't give a day player extra lines unless they're about to be burned for cheap narrative fuel. Chase, whose own utility has withered to an occasionally shirtless nub, earnestly made a case for Willow; confident he'd given the judge something to think about, he dashed over to GH and told Willow he had great news for her.
Sadly for Chase, his efforts amounted to nothing, because Friday's show ended with Danny and Rocco spotting the judge's body floating in the harbor. Oh dear.
Lame, Set, Match
Last and least, we have the ongoing silliness surrounding Joss, Vaughn, Jason, and Britt in Dobrevnik. As you'll no doubt recall, the last column recounted the way Pajama Pants Pascal was able to get the drop on Joss and Vaughn; last week, we saw them brought back together in a comical attempt to wring information out of Joss by threatening Vaughn with a teeny tiny blade if she didn't give them the combination to Brennan's office safe.
We clearly weren't meant to question why in the world anyone would expect Joss to have the combination to Brennan's office safe, so I won't bother doing it here. The point is, she gave it to him, he left with his henchmen, and they hissed mean things at each other while Pascal watched the closed-circuit video, satisfied that he'd gotten what he wanted. Only — plot twist! — the joke was on him, because they knew Pascal was watching, and they were only pretending to have betrayed the Bureau. We know this because Vaughn said "game, set, match," and Joss repeated it.
If you've ever wanted to watch an espionage story that feels like it was written by a lobotomized John le Carré, well, here you go.
Back in the States, Sidwell came home to Wyndemere and found Colette waiting for him, an unwelcome surprise that she explained was the result of his "associate" wanting to know whether he'd "taken care of the problem." That problem? Maxie, who temporarily exited the canvas at the start of the week when she was transferred to Mass General's coma care unit. And why would Sidwell and his co-conspirators be so threatened by Maxie's potentially loose lips? Well, apparently their big plan has something to do with obtaining a controlling interest in Deception, which is about to be secured. With the company's stock in freefall following Maxie's cream-induced collapse on live television, Lucy spent the week fretting for the billionth time about how This Could Be the End for Deception, but Sidwell stepped in and offered to give them a cash infusion in exchange for a larger stake in the company.
I'm not really feeling any of this so far. There are hints of intrigue around various corners, but in general, it feels like more of the same where GH and Deception are concerned, which is to say no one seems to have any idea what to do when it comes to writing an interesting story about a cosmetics company. I personally don't think you need to try so hard that you're inventing exotic enzymes and saying "zincite" every few episodes, and that good old-fashioned corporate espionage would be far easier to write and twice as involving besides, but I'm not in the writers' room, so here we are.
Anyway, Britt's still back, and she spent another week being catty to everyone, including Jason — who gave her a burner phone and told her to call if she needs him — and Pascal, who grows progressively sicker of her shit by the day. And it isn't hard to see where he's coming from, really; her big accomplishments last week included getting a hangover and berating her masseuse/sex toy Tomas into leaving his guard post so she could see what was in the room he'd been standing outside. When she finally made her way in, she discovered Vaughn and Joss, at which point she immediately turned right around and closed the door. I have never identified with her more.
Everything described in this section is deeply inessential, with the exception of the scenes leading up to Maxie's transfer, which included some really solid, emotionally affecting work from everyone involved — especially Kristina Wagner, who deserves a medal for working through those scripts after losing a child in real life. You can pretend the rest of it doesn't exist; I'm laying even odds that within a year, the show will have started pretending the same thing.
Time to let those bullets fly. See you next week!
- Laura and Martin watched Alexis threaten to end Drew, then cheerfully decided they hadn't heard a thing
- James, who remains a highlight of every scene he's in, sent Maxie off with Nathan's badge
- Michael, who of course knew all about Kristina hiring Cody, kept mum about that, but did urge Molly to give Cody the benefit of the doubt
- Gio went to the church to talk to his mom's heavenly spirit on her birthday, and it took all week for him to do it because Brook Lynn and Dante kept interrupting him
- Lucas and Elizabeth had a fun conversation about how much he enjoys being Ava's roommate
- Martin went to Tracy for her help with Stella, which ended with more bickering; when Tracy told him to get out of her house, he reminded her it's Monica's, which feels like it was designed to be a reminder of the letter Martin found weeks ago and hasn't been mentioned since
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